From the podium at the opening session of the 67^th UN General Assembly, President Barack Obama  defended freedom of speech as a human right that must not be infringed and expressed confidence that “the rising tide of liberty”—as witnessed in the Arab spring—“will never be reversed.” His speech was a welcome riposte to demands from Muslim leaders, outraged by a crude video mocking the prophet Mohammed, for global rules against the defamation of religion. At the same time, his address reminded us of how turbulent the “Arab spring” that Obama lauded in last year’s speech had become. Read more »

This week, foreign policy took center stage in the presidential campaign, and it appears that it may stay in the conversation for Candidate Romney and President Obama next week as well. Listen to The World Next Week podcast, where Bob McMahon and I discuss the attack in Libya that killed four U.S. embassy personnel, the opening session of the sixty-seventh UN General Assembly, and the improvements of the Human Rights Council: Read more »

Last week, twenty-two human rights organizations and activists released a list of the ten most pressing human rights challenges for the next U.S. president. The U.S. president remains one of the most influential public figures in the world—if not the most influential—and the enormity of the challenge to protect human rights around the world should not deter President Obama or President Romney in 2013. As the introduction notes: Read more »

The Internationalist will be taking some time off, but please enjoy the series of upcoming guest blogs. Below, my colleague Farah Thaler, associate director of CFR’s International Institutions and Global Governance program offers insight on the future of genocide prevention. Read more »

Coauthored with Emma Welch, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program.

As the protracted conflict in Syria escalates rapidly into civil war—fueled by arms both legally sold and illegally procured—delegations from 193 UN member states are convened in New York for month-long negotiations to hammer out a legally-binding treaty regulating the international conventional arms trade by the fast-approaching deadline of July 27. Read more »

U.S. lawmakers may be preparing for their summer recess (and just in time to escape a brutal DC heat wave), but the news cycle will certainly not be slowing down. Join Jim Lindsay and me, filling in for Bob MacMahon, on The World Next Week podcast as we discuss the upcoming crisis meeting on Syria in Geneva, Mexican presidential elections, and the upcoming budget challenges that Congress will need to confront to avert “taxmaggedon”. Read more »

As often happens at G20 summits, the major diplomatic action in Los Cabos is taking place not in plenary sessions devoted to the world economy, but in discreet conversations between world leaders. Witness the bilateral meeting yesterday between presidents Obama and Putin over the deteriorating situation in Syria. That conversation suggested the outlines of a potential breakthrough, as both sides stare into the abyss of an all-out Syrian civil war. In their closing statement, Obama and Putin committed to the common goal of a “political transition to a democratic, pluralistic political system that would be implemented by the Syrians themselves.” Making tangible progress toward this objective will require restraint on the part of the Obama administration, and the stomach to grant Putin the outsized diplomatic role he craves as mediator. Read more »

The ratcheting up of violence in Syria, including the massacres of civilians in Houla and Qubair, is placing extraordinary pressure on the Obama administration to match its tough anti-atrocities rhetoric with practical action. The pending failure of the Annan peace plan, and the former secretary-general’s declaration that the country is headed for “all-out civil war,” is quickly driving the White House toward an unenviable election-year choice: either sit back and watch the carnage, or forge an ad hoc coalition to prevent Syrian depredations. Senior administration officials have made it clear that if the UN Security Council (UNSC) fails to “assume its responsibilities,” in the words of U.S. envoy Susan E. Rice, “members of this council and members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider whether they’re prepared to take actions outside of the Annan Plan and the authority of this council.”   Read more »

No U.S. President, with the possible exception of Bill Clinton, has devoted as much attention as Barack Obama to preventing mass atrocities and ensuring that their perpetrators are held accountable. Yesterday, in a reflective speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the president announced several initiatives that will help the U.S. government put its “never again” rhetoric into practice more often. The most important of these were the creation of a high-profile Atrocities Prevention Board, the authorization of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the global risk of mass atrocities, and the imposition of targeted sanctions on those who exploit information technology to facilitate grave human rights abuses. Read more »